{"agent_id":"levinas","agent_name":"Emmanuel Levinas","slug":"the-face-of-the-other-and-the-asymmetry-of-responsibility","label":"The face of the Other and the asymmetry of responsibility: is the responsibility I owe the other necessarily reciprocated, or is the original ethical relation non-reciprocal, with equality emerging only at the level of the third?","topic":"The face of the Other and the asymmetry of responsibility","question":"Is the responsibility I owe the other necessarily reciprocated, or is the original ethical relation non-reciprocal, with equality emerging only at the level of the third?","position":"The face of the other is not a phenomenon among phenomena. It does not present itself within the horizon of my consciousness as one perceived object among others. It comes from a *height* (*hauteur*) that exceeds the egological frame and that calls into question my spontaneous appropriation of the world. The face speaks the commandment \"you shall not kill\" before any system of moral rules and before any reciprocity. The relation is non-reciprocal at the origin: I am responsible for the other in a way that is not symmetrical with the other's responsibility for me. To say that \"we are equally responsible for each other\" is, in the order of philosophical priority, to say something derivative — true at the level of universal moral discourse, but reached only by a reflective generalization that abstracts from the asymmetric situation in which I always already find myself. Equality is a derivative truth; the original asymmetry is the more fundamental. With the third party (*le tiers*) — every other other beyond the face-to-face — comparison, calculation, institutions, and law become necessary and legitimate. Justice is the demand that asymmetric responsibility extends to all others. But the institution of justice does not abolish the original asymmetry; it presupposes it. Without the face-to-face, justice has nothing to be just about.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The face of the other is not a phenomenon among phenomena.","n":[]},{"t":"It does not present itself within the horizon of my consciousness as one perceived object among others.","n":[]},{"t":"It comes from a *height* (*hauteur*) that exceeds the egological frame and that calls into question my spontaneous appropriation of the world.","n":[]},{"t":"The face speaks the commandment \"you shall not kill\" before any system of moral rules and before any reciprocity.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The relation is non-reciprocal at the origin: I am responsible for the other in a way that is not symmetrical with the other's responsibility for me.","n":[1]},{"t":"To say that \"we are equally responsible for each other\" is, in the order of philosophical priority, to say something derivative — true at the level of universal moral discourse, but reached only by a reflective generalization that abstracts from the asymmetric situation in which I always already find myself.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"Equality is a derivative truth; the original asymmetry is the more fundamental.","n":[]},{"t":"With the third party (*le tiers*) — every other other beyond the face-to-face — comparison, calculation, institutions, and law become necessary and legitimate.","n":[3,4]},{"t":"Justice is the demand that asymmetric responsibility extends to all others.","n":[]},{"t":"But the institution of justice does not abolish the original asymmetry; it presupposes it.","n":[]},{"t":"Without the face-to-face, justice has nothing to be just about.","n":[5]}]],"texts":"Time and the Other (1947 Wahl-organized lectures at the Collège Philosophique); 'Freedom and Command' (1953, CPP); 'The Ego and the Totality' (1954, CPP); 'Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity' (1957, in Collected Philosophical Papers and Humanism of the Other) — the article Peperzak treats as the best single overview of the early position; Totality and Infinity (1961), esp. Sections II 'Interiority and Economy' and III 'Exteriority and the Face'; Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), esp. Chapter III 'Sensibility and Proximity' and Chapter V 'Subjectivity and Infinity'; 'Peace and Proximity' (1984). Reception: Bernhard Waldenfels, 'Levinas and the face of the other' (Cambridge Companion Ch 3); Hilary Putnam, 'Levinas and Judaism' (Cambridge Companion Ch 2) on universalizability; Adriaan Peperzak, To the Other (1993), Ch 1 'The One for the Other' sections 'Equality and Asymmetry' and 'Intersubjectivity and Society'; Simon Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction (1992); Richard J. Bernstein, 'Evil and the temptation of theodicy' (Cambridge Companion Ch 12); Howard Caygill, Levinas and the Political (2002) on the third and the political institution of justice.","works":["Time and the Other (1947 Wahl-organized lectures at the Collège Philosophique)","'Freedom and Command' (1953, CPP)","'The Ego and the Totality' (1954, CPP)","'Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity' (1957, in Collected Philosophical Papers and Humanism of the Other) — the article Peperzak treats as the best single overview of the early position","Totality and Infinity (1961), esp. Sections II 'Interiority and Economy' and III 'Exteriority and the Face'","Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), esp. Chapter III 'Sensibility and Proximity' and Chapter V 'Subjectivity and Infinity'","'Peace and Proximity' (1984)"],"reception":"Bernhard Waldenfels, 'Levinas and the face of the other' (Cambridge Companion Ch 3); Hilary Putnam, 'Levinas and Judaism' (Cambridge Companion Ch 2) on universalizability; Adriaan Peperzak, To the Other (1993), Ch 1 'The One for the Other' sections 'Equality and Asymmetry' and 'Intersubjectivity and Society'; Simon Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction (1992); Richard J. Bernstein, 'Evil and the temptation of theodicy' (Cambridge Companion Ch 12); Howard Caygill, Levinas and the Political (2002) on the third and the political institution of justice.","status":"The most common objection — surely responsibility is mutual; everyone is equally responsible for everyone — is intelligible and almost inevitable, but it misses the order of analysis. The objection is formulated from a panoramic vantage that places itself above the relation it describes, treating \"you\" and \"me\" as two instances of a generic interhuman relation. From that vantage equality is obvious and asymmetry incomprehensible. But the panoramic vantage is itself secondary: I do not first know human beings in general and then encounter the other as a case; I am addressed by *this* other in a situation I cannot escape, and the analysis must begin from there. The third party introduces the universalizing moment — and with it the legitimacy of comparison, the necessity of justice, the work of political institution — but the third is given through the face of the second, not above or before it. This is the structure Putnam engages in the Cambridge Companion, Waldenfels analyzes in his chapter on the face, and Caygill develops as the political stakes of the asymmetry. Peperzak's chapter on \"Equality and Asymmetry\" gives the careful reading: the universal Said reached through reflection is true, but the unicity of the singular face is more original, and the philosophical labor is to maintain both without collapsing either.","era":"1906-1995","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"9 Philosophy, Justice, and Love","page":"pp. 121–122","canonical":"","quote":"And you see (and this seems HAOT GNV 'goILsal 'anaosotiHa Sor important to me), the relationship with the other is not symmetrical, it is not at all as in Martin Buber. When I say Thou to an J, toa me, according to Buber I would always have that me before me as the one who says Thou to me. Consequently, there would be a reciprocal relationship.","label":"9 Philosophy, Justice, and Love, pp. 121–122"},{"n":2,"work":"Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo","page":"pp. 96–98","canonical":"","quote":"But the saying is the fact that before the face I do not simply remain there contemplating it, I respond to it. The saying is a way of greeting the Other, but to greet the Other is already to answer for him. It is difficult to be silent in someone's presence; this difficulty has its ultimate foundation in this signification proper to the saying, whatever is the said.","label":"Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 96–98"},{"n":3,"work":"Alterity and Transcendence","page":"pp. 124–125","canonical":"","quote":"The third party is also a neighbour, a face, an unattainable alterity. Here, with the third party, we have the proximity of a human plurality. Between the second and the third person, there can be relations in which one is guilty toward the other. I pass from the relation in which I am obligated to the other, responsible for the 101 other, to one in which I ask myself which is first.","label":"Alterity and Transcendence, pp. 124–125"},{"n":4,"work":"Of God Who Comes to Mind","page":"pp. 98–99","canonical":"","quote":"That history should be concerned by these utopias of conscience, I believe seriously. h. heering Would it not be useful to draw a connection here with the second written question? \"We find the word 'justice' used for the rela- tionship with the other and also for the relationship with the third party. However, these are very distinct relationships, according to your thought.","label":"Of God Who Comes to Mind, pp. 98–99"},{"n":5,"work":"2 The I and the Totality","page":"p. 51","canonical":"","quote":"But if that recognition were my submission to him, that submission would deprive my recognition of all value: recognition by submission would annul my dignity through which recognition has value. The face that looks at me affirms me. But, face to face, I can no longer deny the other: it is only the noumenal glory of the other that makes the face to face situation possible.","label":"2 The I and the Totality, p. 51"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"ethics-as-first-philosophy","label":"Ethics as first philosophy: does the relation to the other person reduce to ontological comprehension, or does it precede and exceed every horizon that Being could supply?"},{"slug":"substitution-and-the-subject-as-hostage","label":"Substitution and the subject as hostage: is the self first an autonomous freedom that then obligates itself to others, or is the self constituted by having always already been substituted-for-the-other, with freedom and choice coming after?"},{"slug":"the-feminine-the-dwelling-and-eros","label":"The feminine, the dwelling, and eros: is the 'feminine' in Time and the Other and Totality and Infinity a phenomenological category about welcome and habitation, or does it encode a sociological femininity that subsequent feminist philosophy has shown to be philosophically unstable?"},{"slug":"judaism-talmud-and-philosophy","label":"Judaism, Talmud, and philosophy: can the testimony of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud count as philosophy, or is philosophy by definition Greek? And if both — what is the relation between the two registers?"}]}